The mountains trembled with distant thunder.
By the time Haraza and his companions departed the Hall of the Accord, the world had already begun to shift in their wake. The glyph etched across his chest still burned faintly beneath his tunic—its lines spiraling outward like the spokes of a wheel, unlike the angular geometry of the Twelve. It wasn't born from a single principle, but from many. The Thirteenth.
Caela studied it with quiet awe as they broke camp the next morning.
("It's reactive,") she murmured, tracing the sigils with a warded fingertip. ("Not fixed like the others. It pulls from every glyph you've touched—shaping itself.")
Haraza fastened his cloak. ("Which means I have no idea what it actually does.")
("Yet,") Ryve added with a grin. ("But that's half the fun.")
Brannock gave him a sideways look. ("Is that what we're calling near-certain annihilation now? Fun?")
Ryve spread his hands. ("If you don't laugh at the abyss, it swallows you whole.")
Lirien squinted up at the shifting sky above the peaks. ("The abyss isn't our problem anymore. We're chasing the ones trying to become it.")
They rode swiftly along the Ravine's edge, the path steep and ragged with old battle scars—runes melted into stone, scorch marks where lightning had once danced in concert with steel. The Accord had made their final stand here before falling back to the Hall. Even now, ghosts of that battle whispered through the wind.
Haraza could hear them.
Cries. Names. Pleas.
The echoed host had already begun their dark congregation near the Ravine of Songs. Reports from Caela's shadow-clad contacts had confirmed it—villages emptied overnight, temples desecrated, glyphstones defiled with warped mimicry. Their enemy wasn't just recruiting—it was converting.
By noon of the third day, they reached the Shattered Gate.
It was not a place—it was an event, frozen mid-collapse.
A massive stone arch, once a conduit of leyline resonance, stood shattered over a chasm that hissed with Rift fog. The Rift pulsed far below, vomiting luminous tendrils into the sky like the limbs of a thing that had never been born right. Upon the broken stones of the gate stood a gathering of robed figures.
All of them wore his face.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Reflected, twisted, marred by emotionless smiles and black glyphs etched into their flesh. Some had extra arms. Others lacked mouths. But all stared with identical, unwavering reverence at the chasm.
Haraza felt bile rise in his throat.
("This is wrong,") he whispered.
("They're mimics,") Caela confirmed. ("But they're learning. Look at the way they stand. The way they mimic your gait. This isn't just mimicry. It's... becoming.")
("They're attuning themselves to you,") Harael said grimly. ("To your resonance.")
As if in response, the nearest Echoed turned—and hundreds of heads snapped in unison.
They smiled.
And then they spoke.
("You have come,") they said as one, their voices overlapping in chorus, like a choir made of mirrors. ("The bearer of the Thorn. The hollow vessel. The Thirteenth Mouth.")
Haraza stepped forward, fists clenched. ("You're not me.")
The Echoed tilted their heads in synchrony.
("But you are not you, either,") they replied. ("You are what remains of a scream that forgot itself.")
Brannock unslung his blade. ("I've had enough of this creepy crap.")
The Echoed parted, forming an aisle down the center of the ruined bridge, leading to a platform suspended over the chasm.
Upon it stood one figure, taller than the others. Robed in shadow-threaded silk, a crown of broken antlers upon its head. Its face, too, was Haraza's—but older. Gaunt. Scarred. As if weathered by centuries of impossible weight.
Caela inhaled sharply. ("That's no mimic.")
("No,") Ryve said. ("That's a future.")
The crowned Echoed raised its hand, and the crowd fell silent.
("You bear the Thirteenth,") it said in a voice warped by distance and time. ("And so do I. We are reflections diverged. You, who defy. I, who accepted.")
Haraza stepped onto the path, eyes never leaving the thing wearing his future.
("What do you want?")
The Echoed King spread its arms. ("To complete the cycle. To merge all paths into one—no Twelve, no conflict. Just one glyph. One will.")
("That's not unity,") Haraza said. ("That's annihilation.")
("It is peace.")
("No,") Haraza said, louder now. ("It's surrender. And I didn't survive the Rift just to become it.")
The Echoed King tilted its head. ("Then you choose war.")
("No,") Haraza said, drawing his blade, the glyphs along it flaring with light. ("I choose truth.")
The wind screamed.
The Echoed host surged forward.
And the battle for the Ravine began.
They fought like mirrors in madness.
Each Echoed that lunged bore a resemblance to Haraza or one of his companions—distorted versions of themselves made flesh. Brannock faced a version of himself armored in dragonbone, wielding a flaming chain. Lirien dueled a counterpart draped in flowers that bled. Ryve danced with a specter wrapped in stolen laughter. Harael held the line against a mimic that bent time between its fingers.
And Caela—
Caela vanished.
Haraza didn't have time to think on it—his Echoed King had descended from the platform, wielding a blade of fused glyphlight. Their blades clashed in mid-air, throwing up a cascade of resonance that cracked the air.
("I see now,") the King hissed. ("Why the Rift chose you. You are a wound that refuses to close.")
Haraza gritted his teeth and shoved him back. ("Then let me be the scar that seals it shut.")
They fought atop the broken gate, steel and glyphfire striking with the weight of prophecy. Below, the Rift screamed—its tendrils rising, hungry, eager.
Haraza knew he couldn't kill this Echoed.
Not yet.
But he could remind it who he was.
He drew the Thirteenth glyph—not with magic, but with will. He let the chaos of all the glyphs within him intertwine—not balanced, not ordered—but true to what he was.
The blade in his hand transformed—no longer light, no longer steel, but something between.
He slashed.
The Echoed King recoiled, mask cracking, blood that shimmered like oil splattering the stones.
It didn't fall.
But it knelt.
And for a moment, all the Echoed did the same.
("You begin to become,") the King whispered. ("And so... we begin to fade.")
With a wave of his hand, the Echoed host dissolved—melting into fog, their forms unraveling into lines of fractured song.
Only the King remained, kneeling.
Then even it vanished, leaving behind a whisper on the wind.
("We will meet again, at the Door.")
The battle ended in silence.
Ash drifted down like snow. The ravine pulsed with residual energy, but no longer with hunger.
Haraza lowered his weapon, breathing heavily. His body ached with the toll of the glyphs, but his soul felt clearer.
Ryve limped toward him, a grin on his bloodied face. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."
Brannock wiped soot from his brow. "They melted like puppets. Was that... you?"
("No,") Haraza said quietly. ("It was the Thirteenth. It recognized itself.")
Lirien crouched beside a melted Echoed husk. ("They weren't real... but they were close. Too close.")
And then Caela reappeared—bloodied, eyes glowing faintly, and in her hands a tome bound in Riftscale hide.
("I found this,") she said. ("In the eye of the storm.")
Haraza took it slowly.
It was the Codex of Concord, the last of the glyph texts written by the original Accord. It contained diagrams, rituals, names long forgotten—and instructions for preparing the Final Door.
("We're running out of time,") Caela whispered. ("The next path leads through the Spiral Sanctum.")
Haraza nodded.
("Then that's where we go.")